


Stay With Me

by gnimaerd



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 09:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3130376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnimaerd/pseuds/gnimaerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A coda for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3114032">Rooftops and Parking Lots</a>; Oliver comes home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay With Me

**Author's Note:**

> You should consider listening to this [Sam Smith tribute](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke6cj4IXTdE) by the Vitamin String Quartet whilst you read.

Oliver turns up again when Felicity is eight months pregnant.

He’s been in contact before that – he calls, he leaves her notes – he has, once or twice, actually tweeted at her, using Thea’s Twitter account, which is… weird. And she knows he hasn’t ever really been far from her since she told him she was pregnant. He hasn’t left Starling at all, and given that he’s spent the last couple of years almost completely transitory, that already feels like more effort on his part than she might have expected.

He calls to ask if she’s okay – usually at odd hours of the night – does she need anything? Is there any news? He never directly asks about the pregnancy, but she knows what  _news_  means.

She always tells him  _no_ , but that he can come and visit if he wants.

After the phone calls start, she sees him, once or twice, at a distance, during the day. She knows he tails her, from time to time – like a guard dog. Never for far or for very long, never to her home or her office – just when she’s in crowds, in public places. He’s trying not to be intrusive, but clearly he wants to be near to her.

Why he doesn’t just, you know, drop by like a normal human being, she has no idea.

But she’s not really expecting him to – so it’s a little surprising, when he taps on her bedroom window late one night whilst she’s sat up in bed eating her bodyweight in ice cream, the tub balanced on her bump, watching some truly ill-advised TV.

(She’s eight months pregnant, okay, if she can’t have ice cream and shit tv to make up for the lack of red wine and coffee alongside added heartburn and the innumerable other gross gastro-intestinal complications having an enormous water balloon replete with resident squirming squid-like fetus squishing up all your guts, this would be no fun at all).

Oliver is perched on her window sill, like some oversized green cat, and she has to open the window carefully for fear of toppling him off.

“Hey,” she watches him climb inside, his muddy boots hitting her expensive cream carpet. He tips his hood back, stands stiffly for a moment in the dim light of her bedside lamp, and then he smiles, uncertainly.

“Hey,” he replies – his gaze has gone to her middle which, she guesses, is kinda prominent these days.

“Yup,” she pats herself, a little self-consciously, “still pretty pregnant, huh?”

“You look amazing,” he tells her, hoarsely – and he means it, doesn’t he? Oh, god.

The hormones mean she cries very, very easily these days (it’s proven inconvenient at work – although it does tend to get her what she wants – turns out a crying pregnant lady will close a business negotiation faster than any number of competitive dick head sales guys), so before she bursts into tears, she changes the subject.

“You want some ice cream? Cause if you want ice cream you’re gonna have to take those boots off, mister.”

He smiles, sheepishly, and he looks like a little boy as he sits down on the floor to take off his shoes, props them against her dresser, by his bow and quiver – he peels off his gloves, too, and sets his mask down on her nightstand next to her contacts case.

“Get yourself a spoon,” she directs him at her kitchen as she climbs into bed, “and a damp cloth.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t want you getting greasepaint on my sheets.”

He snorts but does as he’s told – she can hear him padding around her townhouse as if he does this all the time – and when he re-enters the bedroom he has a spoon and a bowl of hot water and a washcloth. He sets them all down on her bedside table, and peels off his hooded Arrow jacket, his movements stiff with fatigue. He’s wearing one of those gross, sweaty old t-shirts of his under it – there’s a hole at the neckline and one of the sleeves is fraying. She needs to talk to Digg about forcing him to buy a stash of new ones. She dreads to think the state of his underwear collection.

“C’mere.”

She reaches out, kneeling up on the bed and grabbing the washcloth, and his mouth quirks but he stands still and lets her wipe him down, quietly acquiescing as she sponges off his panda eyes, his long eyelashes filmy with liquid. She cradles his jaw with one hand, handles the cloth with the other, and he leans, just a little, almost imperceptibly, into her touch.

“You need a haircut.”

“Yeah.” He gazes up at her, almost reverent, and she can tell by the way his fingers are twitching that he wants to put his arms around her.

“Hey,” she smoothes his brow, “wanna stay over?”

He nods, mutely, and she puts the washcloth down and climbs back into bed, making room for him beside her. She should probably make him shower before he lies down – he stinks of sweat and god knows what else and he is definitely going to leave that smell on her sheets – but she’s also worried about scaring him off. He feels flighty, like some semi-feral animal she’s trying to get acclimatised to her presence. No sudden movements, no unexpected noises.

She’ll make him shower in the morning.

“Where’re you staying?” She asks, as he sits down on the edge of the mattress, tugging off his pants.

“Depends,” he mumbles, glancing round, “sometimes with Thea, sometimes – wherever.” He heaves a sigh, then smiles, dryly. “I nearly died – tonight. Quentin Lance was there, he – shot a guy who was gonna… who would have got me straight through the chest if he hadn’t…”

Felicity watches him, carefully – now he’s sat in his boxers and that decrepit shirt, and there’s blood spray on one side of his chest where it must have seeped through his jacket, and his shoulders are hunched up with exhaustion and he really does need a haircut – damnit.

“God, Oliver.”

“He told me to go home,” Oliver sighs, rubbing his eyes with one bunched fist, “get some sleep. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”

Felicity nods. And then, because it seems the thing to do, seems like what he needs – she reaches for him and tugs him close, until his head comes to rest against her shoulder, where she can rub the back of his neck. He heaves a single deep breath, like he’s breathing her in.

“Hey,” she murmurs, “you’ll always belong here, promise.”

“Okay,” he murmurs, like a promise, brushing his nose against her cheek.

She grabs his wrist, laying his palm against where she’s swollen and round. “Here. With us.”

And she hears the huff of his breath as he smiles, his other arm wrapping round her tight – the gentle heat of his grip reassuring, safe, his thumb rubbing little circles by her belly button. She nestles closer for a moment, letting herself believe that it could ever be this easy – that he could just come home one night, her stray old hound, loyal to the last, and lay down in her bed and never leave her side again.

He kisses her temple, her brow, her nose and then her mouth and she kisses him back – and for a few hours, at least, it really does feel like home. 


End file.
